This invention relates generally to the field of aircraft flight control mechanisms, and more particularly to a novel servo-mechanical controller for the testing, evaluation and adjustment of aircraft flight simulators.
The use of flight simulators for aircraft pilot and crew training has found increasingly substantial use in recent years which may variously be attributed to the increased complexity of aircraft control systems and rising costs of aircraft and aviation fuel. Further, reliable flight simulation systems for military flight training in many respects are significantly more diverse and complex than those associated with commercial flight training. In the development of a reliable, fully integrated flight simulator, provisions should be made to simulate not only the basic airframe flight dynamics associated with the fundamental principles of aircraft control, but the simulator should also duplicate as closely as possible the lesser definable parameters associated with a pilot's physiological reaction or response to the aircraft controls, cockpit motion, and visual displays or signals, i.e., the total range of "feel" of the aircraft controls and instrumentation. Desirably true simulation systems therefore necessarily include provisions for providing appropriate cues in response to a pilot's control inputs during a flight simulation program. The simulator must accurately produce cues which are time and amplitude correlated with aircraft control movements and dynamics and with other cues produced in order for the simulator to "feel" right to the simulator pilot.
An instrumented system which may quantitatively measure, record and reproduce the input parameters associated with simulator control is not possible unless the simulator may be "flown" under the same conditions and with substantially the same control inputs as the test airplane from which the input parameters were taken. Even experienced pilots, however familiar with the aircraft for which simulation is required, do not satisfactory provide the controlled, standardized inputs necessary to properly program the flight simulator. The need exists, additionally, for a control mover capable of receiving prerecorded electronically stored aircraft flight profile data and reproducibly translating those inputs to the simulator controls.
The yoke mover of the present invention provides a novel servo-mechanical controller which inputs prerecorded commands to a wheel/column type flight simulator. The controller is capable of three-axis dynamic control in either a position or force mode, in reproducibly translating to the simulator the aircraft control inputs recorded during actual flight conditions of the aircraft to be simulated. The controller is capable of repeating prerecorded control data with much greater precision than a trained pilot, for the evaluation, and adjustment of a flight simulator, or for the comparison of different simulators. The controller of the present invention may be configured to be driven by an analog or digital signal provided by a signal generator, computer, simulator or aircraft flight recorder, or the like. Since the controller may be fed by a recorded signal, its movements may be precisely reproduced repetitively. It is therefore useful in the testing, evaluation, adjustment and certification of flight simulators.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a reliable mechanical controller for aircraft flight simulators.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a servo-mechanical controller for aircraft flight simulators for accurately and reproducibly inputting flight data to the simulators.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an improved flight simulator.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent as the detailed description of certain representative embodiments thereof proceeds.